Metal Culture

Positive Notes Information Session
2025-04-02 18:00 - 19:00 UTC
Date: Wednesday 2nd April 6pm – 7pm Online: Zoom
Want to know more about our lead artist call out for Positive Notes? Then come along to this friendly and informal information session, a chance to hear about the project and ask the Metal team any questions you have regarding the application.
Positive Notes is a brand-new project launching Spring 2025, all about uncovering the hidden gems of Peterborough’s history. By working with young people aged 13 – 25, we want to help discover, celebrate, and share the stories that have been overlooked—stories of amazing people, places, and events that give Peterborough its unique vibe.
By uncovering and celebrating stories of LGBTQIA+, global majority, migrant, and refugee individuals, the Positive Notes aims to reshape perceptions of Peterborough and inspire pride.
Groups of young people from across the city will work with a lead artists to create public art pieces that will showcase these positive stories. We can’t say what or where these will be placed, as these will be led by visions of the young people.
We’re currently looking for our lead artist for the project. To find out more about the call out and to apply, click here.
The closing date for the call out is 5pm Thursday 10 April.
Sign up link: https://bit.ly/4iXKLU0

Citizen Leadership and Marketing with New Art Exchange
2025-05-21 12:00 - 14:00 UTC | Gladstone Connect (Iqbaal Centre), 157 Cromwell Rd, Peterborough, PE1 2EL, United Kingdom
In this interactive session, New Art Exchange (NAE) will share their citizen-led approach to cultural programming—placing community voice at the heart of decision-making. Through case studies and discussion, the session will explore how citizen led models can shape more inclusive, resonant and far-reaching activity. Participants will consider how citizen leadership can inform not only programme content but also build authentic, organic marketing and deeper audience connection.
About New Art Exchange:
New Art Exchange (NAE) is the UK’s largest gallery dedicated to contemporary visual arts from the Global Ethnic Majority. We set out to reshape the contemporary art narrative by championing diversity and inclusivity and by providing a platform for underrepresented voices in the art world. Our focus on co-design and collaboration means we nurture citizen leadership by allowing local voices to guide how we do things. We are the first cultural institution in the world to establish a permanent citizen assembly as a key part of our leadership. This is how we ensure continuous community representation and involvement—demonstrating the power of culture when it’s built with, not just for, communities.
About the Large-Scale Event Network
Together with the Peterborough Cultural Alliance, Metal is hosting a Large-Scale Event and Festivals Network, bringing together groups, individuals, organisations and the people who work hard behind the scenes, from in and around Peterborough. This new network will be led by those involved and exists to help support the wealth of brilliant large-scale events happening across the city, creating a space for inspiration, sharing knowledge and expertise, troubleshooting and collaboration.
To find out more about the Large-Scale Event Network click here.

Where We Are... Peterborough Taster Session - Pockets of Protection with Rose Croft
2025-05-30 11:00 - 15:00 UTC | Peterborough Museum and Gallery
What or who makes you feel safe in Peterborough? How do you show others that they’re safe with you?
Join artist Rose Croft for a drop-in workshop for folks aged 16 – 19, to create your own pocket of protection; a stitched or printed handkerchief or small fabric pouch that holds something important to you. Using a mix of fabric painting, stitching, or printing, add secret pockets or coded symbols, that might symbolise protection, queer or divergent identities, show your identity loudly and proudly, or quietly let someone know they are not alone.
Protective marks have long been carved into buildings and charms sewn into clothing to protection. Locally there are various buildings with secret markings or sigils to ward off evil and many an offering has been found in fens waters.
Queer people and others who’ve felt unsafe being open have also long used colours, gestures or coded objects to signal who they are to those who would understand; eg. green carnations and lavender handkerchiefs or ways of speaking or dressing that signal alternative subcultures.
This session will invite reflection on how we create safety for others or show who we really are when we don’t always feel safe to be fully seen.
This taster workshop is part of Where We Are… Peterborough a UK wide youth-led project with the British Museum. This is a chance to find out about the project, and how to get involved in creating something together that is special and powerful for the city and your community.
Snacks included!
Who is this session for?
This session is aimed at young people aged 16 – 19 year olds, particularly those who identify as LGBTQ+ and / or disabled and / or neurodivergent. Tickets are free.
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pockets-of-protection-with-rose-croft-tickets-1372491130919?aff=oddtdtcreator

Access
The Musuem has step free entrance along with an allocated disabled parking space. There are accessible bathrooms on the ground and first floor of the building, with a lift that takes you from the ground floor to floor 1. You can find the full accessibility page for the Musuem here
About Rose Croft
Rose Croft is a socially engaged artist, storyteller and creative producer, dedicated to creating safe, accessible spaces that foster connection through art, story and nature. Their practice is rooted in the belief that creative experiences can inspire joy, strengthen personal and community resilience and deepen cultural connection.
Rose regularly works with arts organisations, charities, community groups, schools and festivals. They are one half of the not-for-profit arts organisation Art Pop-Up and the founder of the producer-led collective Angry Pencil. Rose has shared stories and delivered workshops both locally and internationally for over 14 years.
About The Kite Trust
Since 1993, The Kite Trust has been at the forefront of delivering LGBTQ+ youth programmes, offering peer-to-peer support and safe social spaces for young people facing discrimination and marginalisation. Each year, they support over 500 young people aged 13–30 through a range of services, including weekly social groups, family events, residential trips, one-to-one support, and youth leadership initiatives.
You can find out more about The Kite Trust here: https://thekitetrust.org.uk/
About the Where We Are… programme
Where we are… is a UK wide youth-led programme for those aged 16–24, which places them at the heart of shaping arts and culture in their local communities, empowering young people through the co-creation of arts and culture. Each year, the British Museum invites cultural and third-sector organisations from across the UK to co-create projects with young people – and we’re thrilled to have been chosen to lead this exciting programme in Peterborough.
You can find out more about the previous rounds of the Where We Are programme here

Where We Are... Taster Session: Mini Museums with Fi Cifaldi
2025-07-13 12:00 - 16:00 UTC | Roots to Rise, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Come and create your own tiny “museum exhibits” that explore identity, storytelling, myths and legends of the city, or perhaps a vision of Peterborough’s future.
Working with Fi Cifaldi, folks will decorate and display objects (real or symbolic), which can be made through air dry clay, drawing, painting, mixed media, collage and with various other crafting supplies or found objects.
In groups, we will make little plaques for our ‘artefacts’ which will include information about where the objects may have been found, who the artist is, a story of how the object came into being, where in Peterborough it’ll be displayed next etc. Over the course of the day, we will display our mini museums for people to explore and learn from what one another have shared.
This taster workshop is part of Where We Are… Peterborough a UK wide youth-led project with the British Museum. This is a chance to find out about the project, and how to get involved in creating something together that is special and powerful for the city and your community.
Snacks included!
Who is this session for?
This session is aimed at young people aged 16 – 19 year olds, particularly those who identify as LGBTQ+ and / or disabled and / or neurodivergent.
Access
The RBI Centre is based in Queensgate shopping centre, opposite where the old John Lewis store use to be based. Queensgate and the RBI Centre has step free access and accessible by wheelchair. The space will have chairs and tables, which can be moved around and adjusted. There is some noise pollution from the main shopping centre that goes into the shop.
About Fi Cifaldi
Fi is a multi-disciplinary creative with a strong commitment to community and inclusivity with a firm belief in pursuing self expression through fun and play at all ages. With nearly ten years of experience in design, illustration, and facilitation, they enjoy helping individuals and groups communicate effectively and connect through impactful storytelling, shared experience and imaginative exploration. Fi’s work spans from graphic design and digital art to hands-on crafts and youth work, always with a focus on stress-free creative environments.
About The Kite Trust
Since 1993, The Kite Trust has been at the forefront of delivering LGBTQ+ youth programmes, offering peer-to-peer support and safe social spaces for young people facing discrimination and marginalisation. Each year, they support over 500 young people aged 13–30 through a range of services, including weekly social groups, family events, residential trips, one-to-one support, and youth leadership initiatives.
You can find out more about The Kite Trust here: https://thekitetrust.org.uk/
About the Where We Are… programme
Where we are… is a UK wide youth-led programme for those aged 16–24, which places them at the heart of shaping arts and culture in their local communities, empowering young people through the co-creation of arts and culture. Each year, the British Museum invites cultural and third-sector organisations from across the UK to co-create projects with young people – and we’re thrilled to have been chosen to lead this exciting programme in Peterborough.
You can find out more about the previous rounds of the Where We Are programme here.

Open Advice Sessions with Metal Liverpool
2025-08-20 09:30 - 16:30 (Europe/London) | Metal Liverpool, Platform 1, Edge Hill Station, Tunnel Road, Liverpool, L7 6ND, United Kingdom
Looking to discuss your creative practice, explore a project idea or build relationships with local organisations?
Metal’s Open Advice Sessions return for the Summer! We want to support you on your creative journey.
We’re offering free one-to-one sessions in-person or online for artists and creatives who live and/or work within our local area. These sessions will be led by you and what you would like to discuss, which might include:

Discussing your creative practice
Talking through a project idea
Advice or sign posting to different funding routes or opportunities
Building relationships with different organisations, voluntary groups, partners or venues
Budget development or reading sections of draft applications

Who is this for?
We’re offering these sessions for people to discuss their work with us in-person or online. There is one session available per artist and the slots are 1 hour long. Sessions are free and will be open on a first come first served basis to those who live and/or work in Liverpool City Region where we are based. To ensure we can support as many artists and creatives as possible, anyone who has previously booked a slot with us in the past 12 months won’t be eligible this time.
Things to note
Our team will share their experience and backgrounds with the disclaimer that that some things brought into the Open Advice Sessions might be outside of our expertise. In this instance, we will try our best to help in the session.What you share with us in the session will stay in the meeting. We will not share your ideas outside of the session space.
About the Metal Liverpool team
In Liverpool we are all practicing artists in our spare time and have various levels of experience developing participatory projects and workshops with clear social and political impacts, working with people from diverse backgrounds. We have supported a variety of artistic disciplines and support a community of artists in our buildings from theatre, dance, film, music, writing, sculpture, drawing and painting, as well as arts for health and wellbeing benefits. We have experience applying for Arts Council funding, as well as smaller locally based trusts and funds. Learn more about our Liverpool site and our access to the building here.
Once you’ve made your appointment, one of Metal team will be in touch over email.
Book an Open Advice Session to speak with the Metal Liverpool team by visiting the link here. Come along and discuss your ideas – we look forward to meeting you!
Project Grants update
We realise many artists and creatives will have been affected by Arts Council England’s decision to pause National Lottery Project Grant funding applications until September.
If you would like to speak to the Metal team about Project Grants in particular, please let us know in the email correspondence we’ll share between when you book your place and the date of your Open Advice Session, then we’ll endeavour to prepare options in advance. For example, we can share alternative potential funding routes, or help plan around the delay as best we can.

Make Time For Love
2025-09-20 - 2025-09-28 | Wavertree High Street, High St, Liverpool, Merseyside, L15 8HF, United Kingdom
Make Time For Love is a project by arts organisation Metal, with artists YARA + DAVINA, commissioned by Culture Liverpool, Liverpool City Council. Make Time For Love is the finale of a 2-year programme called Picton Play with communities in L15, to celebrate the creativity that exists in the Wavertree and Picton neighbourhoods as part of Culture Liverpool’s Creative Neighbourhoods programme.
Everyone is invited to take part in this week of events from 20 – 28 September. The range of activities and events have been shaped by three commissioned short stories set in Wavertree and Picton. The book, Stories, Mystery and Love, will be shared with all households in the L15 postcode over the course of the week. Copies will also be available in libraries across Liverpool library. Events also take inspiration from James Picton’s Clock Tower (1884), created in loving memory to his wife of 50 years, Sarah Pooley. Make Time for Love celebrates love for families, neighbours, community, and friends.
The programme on Wavertree High Street launches with a day of celebratory events on Saturday 20 September, and includes a drop-in floral tribute and postcard making workshop at the Rose Garden, readings by commissioned writers Hanan Issa, Sophie Herxheimer and Joelle Taylor at Wavertree Library, a live musical performance by Capeesh, and the unveiling of four very special clocks.
To sign up – follow the free ticket links here to let Metal know you plan on joining us. Walk-ups are welcome all week at all stages.
Activity continues with Liverpool’s Heritage Day on 21 September; part of a UK wide programme of Heritage Open Days throughout September.

What’s On
Celebration Day Events, 20 September
There will be a range of free activities and events for everyone:
• Drop-in floral tribute and postcard making workshop with artists YARA + DAVINA in the Rose Garden at Wavertree Library
• Live readings from the recently published book Stories, Mystery, and Love by our three commissioned writers, Hanan Issa, Sophie Herxheimer, and Joelle Taylor at Wavertree Library
• A live musical performance of original songs by Capeesh at Wavertree Library
• An unveiling of four clocks by YARA + DAVINA in collaboration with Asylum Link, Capeesh, Damien John Kelly House and Love Wavertree
• A curated playlist of love songs playing in businesses along the High Street, curated by Asylum Link, Capeesh, Damien John Kelly House and Love Wavertree
• A chance to collect a special edition pin from Love Wavertree
• A soundwalk available for download via the free ECHOES app, through which you can listen, in specific locations, to music, field recordings and spoken word gathered from around the neighbourhood

Make Time For Love: Party at Metal! – Saturday 20 September, 5pm-8pm
Please join us for the Make Time For Love celebration evening at Edge Hill Station. Marking the end of Metal’s Picton Play project with a party, there will be food, drink, music – and cake!
Sign up for a free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/make-time-for-love-party-at-metal-tickets-1715023855519

Celebration Week Events, 20 – 28 September
Art installation, 20 – 28 September
Wavertree Town Hall, 89 High Street, L15 8HF
Four bespoke clock faces will be on display this week in Wavertree Town Hall, making statements on love and the passing of time.
“The ghosts of Sarah Pooley and James Picton still keep time – they slow it down at bus stops, run it backwards in junk shops, speed it up at home.” Sophie Herxheimer, excerpt from WIN WIN from the newly published Stories, Mystery, and Love.
The clocks have been created by YARA + DAVINA in collaboration with Asylum Link, Capeesh, Damien John Kelly House, and Love Wavertree, featuring four clock faces, through workshops, which began in the summer of 2025.

Archival material, 20 – 28 September
Wavertree Library, Picton Road, L15 4LP
Architect Sir James Picton designed many iconic Liverpool buildings including Liverpool’s Corn Exchange, and was instrumental in the establishment of public libraries, including Wavertree Library. Over the course of his many travels, Picton often sent letters to his wife, Sarah Pooley. Join us at Wavertree Library to see archival material written by the son of James Picton and Sarah Pooley sharing insight into their relationship and love for each other, alongside a curated selection of books on the theme of love.

Read-a-long and book discussion, 20 – 28 September
Wavertree Library, Picton Road, L15 4LP
Join us for a chance to read together and share thoughts on the newly published book Stories, Mystery, and Love which have been shared with all households in the L15 postcode.

Lessons on Love: drop-in lunchtime community story sharing, 20 – 28 September
Invited local people will share stories of how they have fostered love in their lives and for their area.  Speakers are:
Fozia Choudhry, founder of Fozia’s Kashmiri Kitchen
Fozia’s Kashmiri Kitchen, 155 Picton Road, L15 4LG
Tuesday 23 September, 19:00 – 21:00
Sophie Colligan, a local non-denominational celebrant
Wavertree Library, Picton Road, L15 4LP
Thursday 25 September, 14:00 – 15:00
Paul Rivera, a retired Park Ranger, and resident of Wavertree since the age of 6
Wavertree Library, Picton Road, L15 4LP
Saturday 27 September, 10:00 – 11:00

Daily Love Mantra and Art Trail Tour, 20 – 28 September
Wavertree Town Hall, 89 High Street, L15 8HF
An invitation to meet at the Wavertree Town Hall to hear a love mantra of the day shared by a Make Time For Love facilitator. This event will occur at 11:00 every day.

Pick up a special edition badge, 20 – 28 September
Love Wavertree Community Shop, 203 Picton Rd, Wavertree, Liverpool L15 4LG
In collaboration with Love Wavertree staff and volunteers, artists YARA + DAVINA have designed 500 special edition Make Time For Love enamel pins to encourage people to chat about the love they have for their community and Wavertree High Street. Grab one in exchange for a donation, or any purchase from the shop.

Make Time For Love floral tribute, 20 – 28 September
Occasions Florist, Wavertree High Street,169 Picton Rd, Liverpool L15 4LG
A chance to see the completed floral tribute spelling out Make Time For Love, made during the Rose Garden workshops, in the shop window.

Make Time For Love rug, Wavertree Library, 20 September – ongoing
Wavertree Library, Picton Road, L15 4LP
YARA + DAVINA have created a rug for the children’s area of Wavertree Library, inspired by workshops with the local community, which celebrates Picton and Wavertree’s history. The rug will be on permanent display from 20 September.

Curated playlist, 20 – 28 September
Audiences will also have the chance to listen to the playlist of love songs in businesses along the High Street curated by members of the community.

Soundwalk, ECHOES app, 20 September – ongoing
Inspired by the stories we tell each other that tie us to where we live. The Soundwalk can be listened to through ECHOES; a free app where you can listen to music, field recordings and spoken word in specific locations gathered from around the neighbourhood.

Information for visitors:
Saturday 20 September 2025 – Saturday 28 September
Venues along Wavertree High Street , Wavertree, Liverpool L15

For more detailed information and venue opening days and times, visit: metalculture.com/projects/make-time-for-love

Make Time For Love © by YARA + DAVINA, 2025. A project by Metal. Commissioned by Culture Liverpool and supported by Arts Council England, Liverpool City Council, the University of Liverpool and Art Fund.

Make Time For Love - Celebration Day
2025-09-20 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Wavertree High Street, High St, Liverpool, Merseyside, L15 8HF, United Kingdom
Make Time For Love: Celebration Day – Saturday 20 September, 11am-5pm
Make Time For Love is a project by arts organisation Metal, with artists YARA + DAVINA, commissioned by Culture Liverpool, Liverpool City Council. Make Time For Love is the finale of a 2-year programme called Picton Play with communities in L15, to celebrate the creativity that exists in the Wavertree and Picton neighbourhoods as part of Culture Liverpool’s Creative Neighbourhoods programme.
Everyone is invited to take part in this week of events from 20 – 28 September. The range of activities and events have been shaped by three commissioned short stories set in Wavertree and Picton. The book, Stories, Mystery and Love, will be shared with all households in the L15 postcode over the course of the week. Copies will also be available in libraries across Liverpool library. Events also take inspiration from James Picton’s Clock Tower (1884), created in loving memory to his wife of 50 years, Sarah Pooley. Make Time for Love celebrates love for families, neighbours, community, and friends.
The programme on Wavertree High Street launches with a day of celebratory events on Saturday 20 September, and includes a drop-in floral tribute and postcard making workshop at the Rose Garden, readings by commissioned writers Hanan Issa, Sophie Herxheimer and Joelle Taylor at Wavertree Library, a live musical performance by Capeesh, and the unveiling of four very special clocks.

Make Time For Love: Party at Metal! – Saturday 20 September, 5pm-8pm
Please join us for the Make Time For Love celebration evening at Edge Hill Station. Marking the end of Metal’s Picton Play project with a party, there will be food, drink, music – and cake!
Sign up for a free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/make-time-for-love-party-at-metal-tickets-1715023855519

Celebration Day Events, 20 September
There will be a range of free activities and events for everyone:
• Drop-in floral tribute and postcard making workshop with artists YARA + DAVINA in the Rose Garden
• Live readings by our three commissioned writers, Hanan Issa, Sophie Herxheimer, and Joelle Taylor at Wavertree Library
• A live musical performance of original songs by Capeesh at Wavertree Library
• An unveiling of four clocks by YARA + DAVINA in collaboration with Asylum Link, Capeesh, Damien John Kelly House and Love Wavertree
• A curated playlist of love songs playing in businesses along the High Street
• A chance to collect a special edition pin from Love Wavertree
• A soundwalk available for download via the free ECHOES app, through which you can listen, in specific locations, to music, field recordings and spoken word gathered from around the neighbourhood

All activities are free – book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/metal-liverpool-11181838770
Let us know you’ll be joining us – use the hashtag #MakeTimeForLove on socials and follow our Eventbrite page for individual events.
For more detailed information and venue opening days and times, visit: metalculture.com/projects/make-time-for-love

Make Time For Love © by YARA + DAVINA, 2025. A project by Metal. Commissioned by Culture Liverpool and supported by Arts Council England, Liverpool City Council, the University of Liverpool and Art Fund.

Creative Peer Meet-up and Sharing
2025-10-05 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, 51 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF, United Kingdom
Part of: Leaving Were the Ones Who Could Not Stay, Platfoma festival
Sunday 5 October , 3 – 4:30pm | Peterborough Museum | Free | Open to artists, producers, creatives
Do you explore themes of home, movement, or identity in your work?
Are you looking to connect with others on a similar path?

As part of Platforma Festival 2025, we are inviting artists, producers, and creatives to a creative peer meet–up and sharing session led and hosted by artists Olga Jurgenson and Idit Nathan.

This friendly and reflective session is for creatives working with themes such as migration, memory, and belonging – whether you’re early on in your practice or more established. Together, we’ll explore how peer mentoring can support artistic growth, spark new ideas, and foster meaningful connection.

You’ll have the chance to:

Share your work in a supportive space

Connect with other artists working around similar themes

Reflect on your creative practice through conversation and collaboration

Come along to share, reflect, and build creative solidarity, in the first of what we hope will be many gatherings.

Book your free peer sharing spot
A piece of artwork by Olga Jurgenson titled Aleksander and Arnold from Snezhinki (Snowflakes) 2025.

The address for the Museum is:
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF
The what3words location is: vest.spaces.posed

This meetup is part of the wider Leaving Were the Ones Who Could Not Stay project / exhibition, centred around a group exhibition at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth by four female artists with family history of migration (4 September – 18 October). The project is supported by Metal, Platforma Festival 2025, and Arts Council England.

You can find more about the exhibition here: https://counterpoints.org.uk/event/leaving-were-the-ones-who-could-not-stay/

About the facilitators:

Olga and Idit are collaborators in a long-standing peer mentoring group at Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge, as well as exhibiting artists in the exhibition, Leaving Were the Ones Who Could Not Stay at Broadway gallery in Letchworth (part of Platforma Festival 2025).

Olga Jürgenson
Olga Jürgenson was born in Siberia and raised in Estonia; she is currently based in Cambridge and works and exhibits internationally. Participant in significant group exhibitions globally, including 56th Venice Biennial, MANIFESTA 10, Liverpool, Moscow and Ural biennials, awarded numerous grants and awards from several European foundations. Olga produced and curated the National Pavilion of Mauritius at the 56th and 57th Venice Biennale. Her current artistic work involves rummaging through the archives of her ancestors and learning from their experiences in carpentry, crocheting, and surviving bloodthirsty dictators.

Idit Elia Nathan
Idit Elia Nathan grew up in Jerusalem and is currently based in Cambridge. Her work is exhibited and held in collections in the UK and abroad. She is a conceptual artist whose work includes interactive installations, live events, games, audio-visual works, walks and artists’ books where play and audience participation operate as a productively provocative space to challenge accepted understandings. Using found objects, playing with optics, scale and perspective, her current projects document and investigates the challenging historical and cultural context we find ourselves in.

About Platforma festival
Co-produced by Counterpoints Arts in partnership with local artists and organisations, Platforma is a festival that takes place every two years in a different part of England. The aim is to present work by, with and about refugees to a wide audience, build capacity and share learning. Platforma 2025 will include more than 35 arts events across music, theatre, film exhibitions, and more.
Platforma 2025 in Peterborough is produced by 62 Gladstone Street, a community-rooted arts space in the heart of Peterborough with a particular focus on supporting South Asian and MENA artists. Through exhibitions, residencies, and public programmes, it provides a vital platform for underrepresented voices and fosters meaningful dialogue between artists and the wider community.
Partners: Counterpoints Arts, Landmark Theatres, Peterborough Cultural Alliance, Metal Peterborough, Peterborough Presents, Peterborough Museum, HELP Charity, and the Aziz Foundation
Find out more about the Peterborough Platforma here.

Vanquishing the Cultural Ghosts of Cambridge
2025-10-20 12:00 - 14:30 UTC | Anglia Ruskin University, Room LAB:006, Anglia Ruskin University, Room LAB:006, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, United Kingdom
A workshop with artist and facilitator Kate Genever
20 October 2025
12 – 2:30pm
Room LAB:006, Anglia Ruskin University,
East Rd, Cambridge CB1 1PT
Free, booking recommended.

Is it possible to imagine a bold cultural future for Cambridge, without addressing our ghosts?
In this hands-on, thought-provoking workshop, artist and facilitator Kate Genever will guide Cambridge’s creative community through a collective exploration of the ‘ghosts’ that linger in the city’s cultural and artistic life.
Kate Genever is an artist and facilitator who works alongside communities to imagine and shape the future.
Together, we will:

Consider the hauntings that shape our cultural landscape

Give form to these literal and metaphorical ghosts, bringing the unseen into view

Reflect through conversation and creative acts, as we make space for new visions.

Timed just before Halloween, this session invites artists and creatives of all disciplines to gather, reflect and take part in a collective act of cultural exorcism.
This workshop is part of Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, academic institutions, industry and civic partners to shape a bold new cultural vision for Cambridge.
Open to artists and the creative community of Cambridge.
Let us know you’re coming by booking your place here.

About Create Cambridge
Create Cambridge is the city’s cultural compact, bringing together artists and cultural organisations with academic, industry, and civic partners to lead on a bold new vision for culture in Cambridge.

Championing Culture – Making Cambridge a globally recognised champion of creativity and artistic innovation, where arts organisations, artists and citizens flourish together.

Get a Room: Metal Social hosted by Artist Alfie Winters of One-Hour Residency
2025-10-20 19:00 - 2025-10-30 21:00 UTC | Metal Southend, Chalkwell Hall, Chalkwell Avenue, Southend on Sea, Essex, SS08NB, United Kingdom
Join us on Thursday 30 October, 7-9pm, for Get a Room – a Metal Social offering space for creatives to gather, connect, and collaborate. During the evening you’ll share ideas, plan projects, and meet like-minded people – all in the welcoming environment of Metal’s home in Southend, Chalkwell Hall.
This Metal Social will be hosted by local artist Alfie Winters, founder of the one-hour residency at Chalkwell Hall.
Expect:

a warm welcome
opportunities for connection
creative conversation
a tombola of art-making prompts
fun resources and games including ‘Artist’s Truth or Dare’.

Host Alfie Winters is a visual artist and educator from Essex, working from Studio 12, Leigh-on-Sea. His work explores performance, process, and archive, applying these to create lo-fi autonomy. With a photography background, his lens-based work questions and documents practice-based research in artistic spaces.
Book your free ticket via Eventbrite HERE

Metal Socials are part of Get a Room, Metal’s programme of artist-led hangouts for fun, solidarity, togetherness, and challenge in Liverpool, Peterborough, Southend and online. Get a Room asks, ‘what are the creative spaces we need for fruitful conversations and connection in these times?’

Open Advice Sessions for local artists with Metal Liverpool
2025-10-29 09:30 - 16:30 UTC | Metal Liverpool, Platform 1, Edge Hill Station, Tunnel Road, Liverpool, L7 6ND, United Kingdom
Want to discuss your creative practice, explore a project idea or build relationships with local organisations?
Metal’s Open Advice Sessions for local artists return this Autumn. We want to support you on your creative journey.
We’re offering free one-to-one sessions in-person or online for artists and creatives who live and/or work within our local area. These sessions will be led by you and what you would like to discuss, which might include:

Discussing your creative practice

Talking through a project idea

Advice or sign posting to different funding routes or opportunities

Building relationships with different organisations, voluntary groups, partners or venues

Budget development or reading sections of draft applications

Who is this for?
We’re offering these sessions for people to discuss their work with us in-person or online. There is one session available per artist and the slots are 1 hour long. Sessions are free and will be open on a first come first served basis to those who live and/or work in Liverpool City Region where we are based. To ensure we can support as many artists and creatives as possible, anyone who has previously booked a slot with us in the past 12 months won’t be eligible this time.

Things to note
Our team will share their experience and backgrounds with the disclaimer that that some things brought into the Open Advice Sessions might be outside of our expertise. In this instance, we will try our best to help in the session. What you share with us in the session will stay in the meeting. We will not share your ideas outside of the session space.

About the Metal Liverpool team
In Liverpool we are all practicing artists in our spare time and have various levels of experience developing participatory projects and workshops with clear social and political impacts, working with people from diverse backgrounds. We have supported a variety of artistic disciplines and support a community of artists in our buildings from theatre, dance, film, music, writing, sculpture, drawing and painting, as well as arts for health and wellbeing benefits. We have experience applying for Arts Council funding, as well as smaller locally based trusts and funds. Learn more about our Liverpool site and our access to the building here.
Once you’ve made your appointment, the Metal team will be in touch over email.
Book an Open Advice Session to speak with the Metal Liverpool team. Come along and discuss your ideas – we look forward to meeting you!

Positive Notes Collage Workshop with Joel Rodriguez at Dream Space
2025-10-30 14:00 - 16:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Looking for something creative to do this half-term? Join artist Joel Rodriguez at Dream Space for a hands-on collage workshop. We’ll be mixing up images, textures, and words to imagine future stories of Peterborough and Joel will be taking portraits of participants, with their consent, to capture the people behind the stories. All part of our Positive Notes project.
Collages made during the workshop will form part of an online exhibition linked to Positive Notes, celebrating the imagination and voices of young people across the city.
Drop in, make, chat, and add your story to Peterborough’s future.
No experience needed, just curiosity and open minds!
Positive Notes is an arts project developed with young people (aged 13–25) from across Peterborough. Working with artist Joel Rodriguez, it uncovers and celebrates the hidden gems of the city, stories of amazing people, places and events. Community groups and young people have been shaping these artworks, inspiring a series of colourful tile-based artworks that will soon be installed across the city centre, forming a trail of creativity, connection and pride.
Dream Space is Metal’s new pop-up creative hub in Queensgate, transforming an empty shop into a welcoming space for reading, reflection, and making. At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room, a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. Featuring titles from Left Book Club, Pluto Press, and local artists, the Reading Room invites visitors to slow down, explore, and connect through creativity.
For more information please contact Sarah at sarah@metalculture.com
Image Credit: Anthony Ashely

Invited by Metal: Reverie - a dream of autoimmunity by Joanna Holland
2025-11-02 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, 51 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF, United Kingdom
Sunday 2 November, 7pm
Peterborough Museum and Gallery
Tickets £7.50 / free for people who identify as living with chronic illness, Disabled, D/deaf and/or neurodiverse
Ages 14+

Invited by Metal, multidisciplinary artist Joanna Holland brings her performance Reverie – a dream of autoimmunity to Peterborough.

A once grand hall in an abandoned manor house – now in a dilapidated state of disrepair. A young woman, a dreamy new friendship, and a curse. An unorthodox relationship, but one which has utterly lifted her from a state of melancholia.

Suddenly this friendship takes a sinister turn, and she finds herself in a nightmarish scenario – where comfort is replaced by claustrophobia and trust by terror.

Rule one – never ever share your innermost secrets.

Rule two – old houses are not to be trusted.

Entanglements between chronic illness and a repetitive dream inspired Joanna’s auto-fictional tale of love, loss and unpredictability. Reverie is performed as a dreamlike monologue by award-winning actress Louise Kim Salter. Directed by Stéphanie Joalland.

The performance will be followed by a Q&A with writer Joanna and actress Louise.

Presented by METAL Peterborough, funded by Arts Council, England.

This performance is part of The Haunted. Running over the course of a year, The Haunted is a collection of performances, talks, readings, and soundscapes which explore liminal space, dreaming, sick bodies, horror, and the uncanny. Female-led narratives by Disabled and non-Disabled artists share what it’s like to exist in an ever-shifting, ‘in between’ space.

Content information: Reverie – a dream of autoimmunity features themes of horror, chronic illness, parasomnias, nightmares, visions, pain and death. It has an unnerving and extremely loud soundtrack, with some sudden noises, moments of darkness and flashing lights.

Tickets are £7.50 or free for people who identify as living with chronic illness, Disabled, D/deaf or neurodiverse

Book your ticket here: https://peterboroughmuseum.org.uk/events/reverie

Find out more about the project at https://www.hollandsyntax.uk/

Image Credit: Louise Kim Salter in Reverie © Chloe Page

Dream Space: Imagine a Reading Room workshop
2025-11-07 14:30 - 16:30 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Join Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck from the Alternative School of Economics, as they imagine and design a new modular, mobile Reading Room for Peterborough – and invite you to be part of it.
We’ll think about how we make a space to be together, what a Reading Room could be, and how we can care for it. During the workshop we’ll use drawing, look at images and motifs, and collectively design the mobile Reading Room structure. We need your ideas on how to make it welcoming, inviting, and something you’d like to use!
This workshop is part of our Dream Space, which breathes new life into an empty shop unit in the corner of Queensgate, transforming it into a vibrant community hub for reading, reflection, and creative exchange in the heart of Peterborough. At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room – a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. This is one event of a packed programme of events and workshops.
You can find out more about Dream Space here.

About The Alternative School of Economics
The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck that questions dominant economic systems through collective self-education. Working with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to lived experience and use feminist and alternative economics as forms of resistance. A selection of books from their projects Rabbits Road Institute Library (2016-) and The Neoliberal Imagination (2023) can be found on the shelves.

About ReCollective
ReCollective are a diverse group of designers, environmental activists, makers and mavericks who work together to create systemic changes around attitudes towards ‘waste’ materials. They divert material away from waste streams, often from creative industries like film and theatre, and embedding it into buildings and structures for communities.

Image credit: The Alternative School of Economics & At the Library

Dream Space: We're all from somewhere... with Soraya Smithson and Kate Genever
2025-11-13 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Join artists Soraya and Kate on 13 November to explore what’s in a name?
Souvenirs and surnames overlap. Both things we keep, and both relate to specific times and places. Souvenirs come from close and faraway places. Names do too.
Soraya and Kate invite you to join us over a collection of souvenirs as we start to think about what journeys our families and their names have been on to meet us here in Peterborough in 2025.
Do you, like Kate, have a Dutch surname that’s arrival in the area is long lost? Or perhaps yours is Italian and relates to the city’s brick history? Maybe you are Ukrainian or Somalian or Scottish and your name speaks of a more recent arrival? Maybe you don’t know but are intrigued to find out more.
As part of the session Kate and Soraya will invite you into a creative activity that generates future souvenirs. New objects that record our presence here in this time and space.
This event is part of Metal’s Dream Space, which will breathe new life into an empty shop unit in the corner of Queensgate, transforming it into a vibrant hub for reading, reflection, dreaming for the future and creative exchange in the heart of Peterborough. At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room – a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. Alongside this, we’re offering a packed programme of events and workshops and the opportunity to co-design a new pop-up reading room structure to live on beyond the project. Find out more about Dream Space

Dream Space: Help Create Peterborough's Pop-Up Reading Room
2025-11-15 15:00 - 17:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Join Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck from the Alternative School of Economics, as they dream up something new — a modular, mobile Reading Room for Peterborough — and they invite you to be part of it.
Together we’ll reimagine what a reading room could be – a structure that can hold books and be a space for meaningful conversations. We need your help to make it welcoming, inviting, and something you’d like to use!
During the workshop we’ll use screen printing and block printing techniques to transform recycled fabric into material for Metal’s new Reading Room structure, as well as imagery inspired by Peterborough, its histories, stories and community spaces.
No experience necessary, just curiosity and a willingness to experiment!
About Dream Space
This workshop is part of our Dream Space, which will breathe new life into an empty shop unit in the corner of Queensgate, transforming it into a vibrant community hub for reading, reflection, and creative exchange in the heart of Peterborough. At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room – a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. This is one event of a packed programme of events and workshops and the opportunity to co-design a new pop-up reading room structure to live on beyond the project.
You can find out more about Dream Space here.
About The Alternative School of Economics
The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck that questions dominant economic systems through collective self-education. Working with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to lived experience and use feminist and alternative economics as forms of resistance. A selection of books from their projects Rabbits Road Institute Library (2016-) and The Neoliberal Imagination (2023) can be found on the shelves.
About ReCollective
ReCollective are a diverse group of designers, environmental activists, makers and mavericks who work together to create systemic changes around attitudes towards ‘waste’ materials. They divert material away from waste streams, often from creative industries like film and theatre, and embedding it into buildings and structures for communities.
Image credit: The Alternative School of Economics & At the Library

Metal Open Advice Sessions - Peterborough
2025-11-19 10:30 - 17:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Looking to discuss your creative practice, explore a project idea, or build relationships with local organisations?
About the Sessions
We’re offering free 1:1 sessions online or in person for artists who live and/or work within our local area. These sessions will be led by you and cover topics you’d like to discuss. This might include:

Your creative practice
Talking through a project idea
Advice or signposting to different funding routes or opportunities
Building relationships with different organisations, voluntary groups, partners or venues
Budget development or reading draft applications

Booking Information
There is one session available per artist and the slots are 1 hour long. Sessions are free and will be open on a first come first served basis. Please let us know in advance if you have any access requirements.
To ensure we can support as many artists and creatives as possible, anyone who has previously booked a slot with us won’t be eligible this time. Book your place [add booking link – button]
Our team will share their experience and backgrounds with the disclaimer that that some things brought into the Open Advice Sessions might be outside of our expertise. In this instance, we will try our best to help in the session.
What you share with us in the session will stay in the meeting. We will not share your ideas outside of the session space.
About the Peterborough team:
In Peterborough, our team have a background working in community roles, artist spaces or as practicing artists, which include photography, performance art and socially engaged work. We have experience developing and delivering participatory projects with artists, organisations and local communities, as well as developing activities with young people and arts for health and wellbeing. We’ve supported artists in a wide range of creative disciplines, including artists who are in the early stages of their career and have a vast knowledge of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Fenland. We have experience in supporting artists with their funding applications including Arts Council England.

Get a Room: Social — Dream Access Terminal with Lawrence Becko
2025-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Get a Room: Social — Dream Access Terminal with Lawrence Becko
Thursday 20 November, 6–8pm
Dream Space, Unit 27, Queensgate, Peterborough
Free

Are you an artist / creative looking to network, share your latest projects, or simply connect with like-minded individuals? Come along to our next at Get a Room Social at Metal Peterborough – space for the creative community to come together, spark new ideas, and collaborate.
In our pop-up Dream Space in Queensgate, join artist Lawrence Becko to explore the Dream Access Terminal. Built from vintage computer components and analogue music equipment, this interactive installation will playfully reimagine what it might mean to generate and browse dreams.
Participants are invited to explore a world of 8-bit dreamscapes, retro sci-fi visuals, and video game–inspired animations — the artist’s own collection of digital ‘dreams’ created since his SPILL festival Residency in 2024. As you move through the space, you’ll encounter mellow ambient soundtracks and dreampop cassette players to accompany your journey, creating a sensory mix of nostalgia and imagination.
The evening will also feature a live ambient DJ set by Lawrence, blending low-tech loops and gentle electronic soundscapes inspired by imaginary worlds and surreal encounters. Expect conversation prompts, a touch of nostalgia, and the chance to share your own dream stories — from the strangest places you’ve visited to the unexpected people you’ve met there.
Come connect, unwind, and explore.
Book your free space here.
This event is part of Metal’s Dream Space, which will breathe new life into an empty shop unit in the corner of Queensgate, transforming it into a vibrant hub for reading, reflection, dreaming for the future and creative exchange in the heart of Peterborough. At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room – a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. Alongside this, we’re offering a packed programme of events and workshops and the opportunity to co-design a new pop-up reading room structure to live on beyond the project. Find out more about Dream Space

From Here: Cambridge, Creatively
2025-11-24 10:00 - 12:00 UTC | Kettle’s Yard, Castle Street, Cambridge, CB3 0AQ.
Monday 24 November, 10am–12pm
at the Kettle’s Yard, Castle Street, Cambridge, CB3 0AQ.

What gives Cambridge it’s creative spark, it’s creative power? What energies, resources and ideas flow through the city? How might we build on them to shape a bold creative future together?

In this participatory workshop, urban scholar and artist Dr Zhuozhang Li invites Cambridge’s creative communities to uncover and share Cambridge’s creative stories and explore it’s creative energy. Through conversation, storytelling, and collaboration, we’ll uncover the city’s hidden creative strengths and imagine what comes next.

Together, participants will explore:

the creative strengths and qualities that make Cambridge distinctive

the often-unseen ideas, energies, and stories that shape the city’s culture

how we might tell a shared creative story for Cambridge’s future.

This session is open to artists, makers, and creatives of all disciplines, and is about naming and recognising what’s already here and can be built upon – surfacing the unique creative potential that exists within Cambridge’s communities today.

Your ideas, insights, and creative responses will directly feed into the new cultural strategy being developed for Cambridge. This is an opportunity to help shape the future of Cambridge — through art, conversation, and collaboration.

Book your free place here.

Dr Zhuozhang Li’s work explores how people and places co-create new ways of knowing and (re)imagining the city. He is a member of the Community Design Research Lab and the Cambridge Room (www.cambridgeroom.org).

This workshop is part of Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, universities, industry and civic partners to shape a bold new vision for culture in Cambridge.

The Connective Tissue of Cambridge – Workshop with Amy Vaughan
2025-11-25 16:00 - 18:00 UTC | Cambridge Room, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge Rooms, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge
Date: 25 November 2025
Time: 4 – 6pm
Location: Cambridge Room, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre

Cambridge’s cultural scene is full of energy, talent, and ideas – but how can we strengthen the connections that bring it all together?
Join cultural leader Amy Vaughan for an inspiring, hands-on workshop all about the ‘connective tissue’ of Cambridge’s creative life. Together, we’ll explore what could happen if we shifted to a ‘yes, and’ mindset – opening up new ways to collaborate, imagine, and make things happen.
During the session we will:

Generate imaginative ideas about the connective tissues and potential networks that could exist between artists, organisations, and communities.

Work collaboratively to envision new futures of connection and cultural collaboration in the city.

Your ideas, insights, and creative responses will directly feed into the new cultural strategy being developed for Cambridge. This is an opportunity to help shape the future of Cambridge – through art, conversation, and collaboration.

Open to artists, makers, and creatives of all disciplines.

About Amy and Creative Cambridge
Amy Vaughan is a cultural leader based in Cambridgeshire, known for her strategic work in shaping creative ecosystems and championing collaborative cultural futures.
This workshop is part of Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, universities, industry and civic partners to shape a bold new vision for culture in Cambridge.

How to find the Cambridge Room:
Unit 57, The Grafton centre – opposite H&M Home and Boots
Bookings can be made by clicking here.

Get a Room: Social — The Exhale with artist Hana Sayeed (Malika Speaks)
2025-11-30 13:00 - 15:00 UTC | Unit 27, Queensgate Shopping Centre, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Get a Room: Social — The Exhale with artist Hana Sayeed (Malika Speaks)
Sunday 30 November 1-3pm
Dream Space, Unit 27, Queensgate, Peterborough

Are you an artist / creative looking to network, share your latest projects, or simply connect with like-minded individuals? Come along to our next Get a Room Social at Metal Peterborough – space for the creative community to come together, spark new ideas, and collaborate.

In our pop-up Dream Space in Queensgate, join artist Hana Sayeed @MalikaSpeaks to explore The Exhale. designed as a gentle invitation to slow down, rest, and simply be.
Inspired by Erich Fromm’s The Art of Being, The Exhale offers a space for artists and creatives to step away from doing, and return to being. This gathering provides time to rest, reconnect, and reflect on what it means to exist outside the pressure of productivity.

Together, we’ll create a collective exhale, a shared act of self-nourishment and renewal.
The evening will transform Metal’s Dream Space into a calm, sensory environment filled with soft lighting, slow instrumental soundscapes, and the subtle scent of essential oils.

What to expect:

The Tea Corner – A choice of herbal teas, each with its own properties and reflective prompts, offering warmth and grounding.

The Soundscape Space – A stillness zone with guided meditation and gentle breathing exercises through headphones.

The Reflection Table – Creative prompts and provocations to explore the question: What would life look like if we were allowed to just be?

Book your free space here.

This event is part of Metal’s Dream Space, which will breathe new life into an empty shop unit in the corner of Queensgate, transforming it into a vibrant hub for reading, reflection, dreaming for the future and creative exchange in the heart of Peterborough.  At the centre of Dream Space is our Pop-Up Reading Room – a place where ideas are cooked up, books are shared, and conversations spark. Alongside this, we’re offering a packed programme of events and workshops and the opportunity to co-design a new pop-up reading room structure to live on beyond the project. Find out more about Dream Space

Create Cambridge: Artist Open Advice Sessions with Issam Kourbaj
2025-12-02 10:00 - 16:15 UTC | Cambridge Room, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge Rooms, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge
Calling all artists and creative freelancers based in Cambridge! Are you looking to discuss your creative practice or explore a project idea?
Metal is hosting free 1:1 Open Advice Sessions in Cambridge with guest artists as part of the Create Cambridge programme. These sessions are for artists and freelancers who live and/or work in Cambridge and will be led by you and what you would like to discuss.
This might include:

discussing your creative practice

talking through a project idea

advice or sign posting to different funding routes or opportunities.

These sessions give artists focused time to discuss any creative challenge, question, or ambition – whether that’s developing a new idea, tackling a barrier in their practice, or simply talking through their work with someone experienced.

Why are we offering Open Advice Sessions?
Metal has been commissioned by Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, universities, industry and civic partners to help shape a new vision for culture in Cambridge. Find out more about Create Cambridge here.

About the Guest Artist
Issam Kourbaj is a Syrian-born artist who has lived and worked in Cambridge since 1990. He trained in fine art, architecture, and theatre design in Damascus, Leningrad and London. His multidisciplinary practice often responds to cultural memory, displacement, and transformation, and his work has been exhibited internationally, including at major museums and biennales. In this one-to-one session, Issam can support you with any creative problem or challenge. Specialisms include conceptual framing, archive or memory-based work, or site-responsive practice – drawing from his deep experience working across disciplines and geographies.

How to Book:
Sessions will be 1 hour long and hosted by a guest artist. Each one-to-one is informal, artist-to-artist, and entirely tailored to you
There is one session available per artist, and they are reserved on a first come first served basis (to those who live and/or work in Cambridge).  When booking the session, please let us know of any access requirements.
Book your free place here

Create Cambridge: Artist open advice sessions with Bryony Kimmings
2025-12-03 10:00 - 16:15 UTC | UK Wide (Online Event), Online, United Kingdom
Calling all artists and creative freelancers based in Cambridge! Are you looking to discuss your creative practice or explore a project idea?
Metal is hosting free 1:1 Open Advice Sessions in Cambridge with guest artists as part of the Create Cambridge programme. These sessions are for artists and freelancers who live and/or work in Cambridge and will be led by you and what you would like to discuss.
This might include:

Discussing your creative practice

Talking through a project idea

Advice or sign posting to different funding routes or opportunities

These sessions give artists focused time to discuss any creative challenge, question or ambition – whether that’s developing a new idea, tackling a barrier in their practice or simply talking through their work with someone experienced

Why are we offering Open Advice Sessions?
Metal has been commissioned by Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, universities, industry and civic partners to help shape a new vision for culture in Cambridge. Find out more about Create Cambridge here.

About the Guest Artist
Bryony Kimmings is a British live artist based in Cambridgeshire and London. She is known for bold, autobiographical, and socially provocative work that often takes the form of live experiments exploring personal and cultural taboos. Her performances address subjects such as identity, resilience, health, and visibility, and have toured nationally and internationally.
In her one-to-one sessions, Bryony can support you with any creative problem or challenge. Specialisms include live practice, performance as enquiry, personal narrative, risk-taking in creative work, and navigating the boundaries between the personal and public.

How to Book:
Sessions will be 1 hour long and hosted by a guest artist. Each one-to-one is informal, artist-to-artist, and entirely tailored to you
There is one session available per artist, and they are reserved on a first come first served basis (to those who live and/or work in Cambridge). When booking the session, please let us know of any access requirements.
Book your free place here.
Image Credit: Greg Hodge

Create Cambridge: Artist open advice sessions with Mark Titchner
2025-12-09 10:00 - 16:15 UTC | Cambridge Room, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge Rooms, Unit 57, The Grafton Centre (opposite H&M Home and Boots), Cambridge
Calling all artists and creative freelancers based in Cambridge! Are you looking to discuss your creative practice or explore a project idea?
Metal is hosting free 1:1 Open Advice Sessions in Cambridge with guest artists as part of the Create Cambridge programme. These sessions are for artists and freelancers who live and/or work in Cambridge and will be led by you and what you would like to discuss.
This might include:

discussing your creative practice
talking through a project idea

advice or sign posting to different funding routes or opportunities.

These sessions give artists focused time to discuss any creative challenge, question or ambition – whether that’s developing a new idea, tackling a barrier in their practice or simply talking through their work with someone experienced

Why are we offering Open Advice Sessions?
Metal has been commissioned by Create Cambridge, the city’s cultural compact bringing together artists, cultural organisations, universities, industry and civic partners to help shape a new vision for culture in Cambridge. Find out more about Create Cambridge here.

About the Guest Artist
Mark Titchner is an artist whose practice engages with language, belief systems, and public space. A Turner Prize nominee, his work frequently involves participatory processes and interventions in public contexts, combining text, architecture, and collaborative strategies. In this one -to-one session, Mark can support you with any creative problem or challenge. Specialisms include language, discourse, public engagement, conceptual frameworks or how participatory strategies can weave into your own practice.

How to book:
Sessions will be 1 hour long and hosted by a guest artist. Each one-to-one is informal, artist-to-artist, and entirely tailored to you
There is one session available per artist, and they are reserved on a first come first served basis (to those who live and/or work in Cambridge). When booking the session, please let us know of any access requirements.
Book your free place here.

Get a Room for DDN artists and creatives — John Clark online
2025-12-15 18:00 - 19:30 UTC
Get a Room for DDN artists and creatives — John Clark online
Monday 15 December 6-7.30pm
Online – via Zoom

Are you an artist or creative that identifies as d/Deaf disabled & neurodivergent (DDN)? Are you a support worker, carer, or friend of someone who’s DDN and looking to connect with like-minded individuals? Autistic Filmmaker, John Clark has been actively engaging with DDN artists and creatives, and following on from his ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ meetings back in February, John would like to offer people the opportunity to attend a similar online gathering. They’ll be an opportunity to; further network, collaborate and potentially make together.

👉 Get a Room for DDN artists and creatives — John Clark online
📅  15 December 6-7.30pm
📍Online – via Zoom

This online session is welcome to anyone who identifies as DDN , (as well as friends, support workers and Carers).

The sessions is free and the perfect opportunity to connect with other like-minded creatives and hobbyists alike, share resources, and simply be a safe space to hang out.

Let us know you’re coming – book your spot here.

ID: A black and white photograph of artist John Clark working on a large piece of paper with an ink stamp.

Get a Room for DDN artists and creatives — John Clark
2026-01-19 11:00 - 13:00 UTC | Roots to Rise, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
👉 Get a Room for DDN artists and creatives — John Clark
📅 19 January 11am – 1pm
📍In Person at RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT

Are you an artist or creative that identifies as d/Deaf disabled & neurodivergent (DDN) ? Are you a support worker, carer, or friend of someone who’s DDN and looking to connect with like-minded individuals?
Autistic Filmmaker, John Clark has been actively engaging with DDN artists and creatives, and following on from his ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ meetings back in February, John would like to offer people the opportunity to attend a similar in person gathering. They’ll be an opportunity to; further network, collaborate and potentially make together.
This session is welcome to anyone who identifies as DDN , (as well as friends, support workers and Carers).
The session is free and the perfect opportunity to connect with other like-minded creatives and hobbyists alike, share resources, and simply be a safe space to hang out.
Let us know you’re coming by booking your slot here.
We look forward to seeing you!
ID: A black and white photograph of artist John Clark working on a large piece of paper with an ink stamp.

Here We Are Exhibition
2026-01-23 11:00 - 17:00, 2026-01-24 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Roots to Rise, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough PE1 1NT, RBI Art Centre CIC, Queensgate, Long Causeway, Peterborough, PE1 1NT, United Kingdom
Here We Are is an exhibition of works expressing individuality, mess, union, and hope. Created by local young people in collaboration with Metal, The Kite Trust, and The British Museum, new urgent, noisy, and non-conformist works celebrate unheard voices and showcase queer joy.
During the Autumn of 2025, 15 local young people took part in Where We Are, a UK wide youth-led programme with The British Museum, supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, for those aged 16–24. The programme placed them at the heart of shaping arts and culture in their local communities, empowering young people through the co-creation of arts and culture.
Working with artist Rose Croft, Metal, and The Kite Trust, the group have explored new ways of making and creating work – from spoken word, to alternative ways of mark making, and music-jamming sessions. They’ve explored themes around power and youth voice, all whilst learning about the creative gems that Peterborough has to offer.
This has resulted in the creation of Here We Are, a pop-up exhibition taking place in the heart of Peterborough city centre. The exhibition is an opportunity to see all the work that young people have created during the programme.
Alongside the exhibition on Saturday 24 January from 2 – 5pm there will be creative activities, performances, and a discussion panel taking place between 2 – 5pm.
About the Where We Are programme
‘Where We Are’ is a youth-led British Museum programme, supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, for those aged 16–24 aims to empower young people through the co-creation of arts and culture projects within their own communities.
Running from 2021–2025, Where we are… is delivered through a collaborative partnership between the British Museum, a local museum (or cultural organisation), a third sector organisation (charity, community group, social enterprise etc.) and young people.
About The Kite Trust
Since 1993, The Kite Trust has been at the forefront of delivering LGBTQ+ youth programmes, offering peer-to-peer support and safe social spaces for young people facing discrimination and marginalisation. Each year, they support over 500 young people aged 13–30 through a range of services, including weekly social groups, family events, residential trips, one-to-one support, and youth leadership initiatives.
You can find out more about The Kite Trust here

Metal Southend: Open Advice Sessions
2026-01-28 10:00 - 17:30 UTC | Metal Southend, Chalkwell Hall, Chalkwell Avenue, Southend on Sea, Essex, SS08NB, United Kingdom
Our Metal Open Advice Sessions for creatives of all levels and art forms are back this January!️
As we settle into the new year, we’re delighted to be offering free 1:1 advice sessions for artists who live and/or work within our local area. Reflect, reset and plan your next creative steps with us, all while enjoying the winter sunshine from our top floor at Chalkwell Hall.
On Wednesday 28 January, we’re offering free 1:1 advice sessions led by you and whatever you’d like to discuss, which might include:
– Talking through your creative practice
– Developing or sense-checking a project idea
– Advice or signposting to funding routes and opportunities
– Building relationships with organisations, voluntary groups, partners or venues
– Budget development or reading draft applications
Sessions are available in person from Chalkwell Hall, or online if you prefer. Each artist can book one session, and sessions last 1 hour.
Places are offered on a first come, first served basis (for those who live and/or work in our local area).
Book your free place here.

LOOK Climate Lab 2026: Shift Members' Meeting
2026-02-03 14:30 - 16:00 UTC | Open Eye Gallery, 19 Mann Island, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool, L3 1BP, United Kingdom
Shift Members’ Meeting – LOOK Climate Lab 2026 – Tuesday 3 February at 2:30pm – Open Eye Gallery.
Shift is the environmental sustainability network for cultural organisations in Liverpool City Region co-ordinated by Metal Liverpool. February’s Shift meeting will be made open to the public as part of LOOK Climate Lab at Open Eye Gallery.
There will be updates from members and a presentation from artist Hwa Young Jung about their Flow.Walk.Drag project and the walking tours that happened in Liverpool and Margate last year, led by drag artists as microorganisms (cholera & E. coli).  A transdisciplinary artistic response to the climate emergency.
For more information see: shiftliverpool.com and fwdrag.art
